"Jean Bart was a French battleship of World War II named for the seventeenth century seaman and corsair Jean Bart. A Dunkerque class battleship, it was designed to counter the threat of the Italian Navy. Its speed, shielding, armament and overall technology were state of the art but it had an unusual main armament arrangement with two 4-gun turrets to the front and none to the rear. Jean Bart was laid down in December 1936 and launched on March 6, 1940. Barely 75% completed, her engine having never worked before, she sailed to Casablanca in June 1940 to escape the advance of the German army in France. Only one of her two 380 mm (15.0 inch) main turrets was present.

The second one, with only two of the intended four guns, was loaded on a cargo ship that was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. The 152mm battery was also missing, and was replaced by anti-aircraft armament. Like other French assets in North Africa, Jean Bart went under control of the Vichy government.

After the war, she returned to France and was eventually completed in 1949 under a brand new design influenced by lessons from the previous conflict. Jean Bart subsequently took her part in the Suez Crisis. Put into the reserve in 1957, she was decommissioned in 1961, and scrapped in 1969."